It’s the best Saturday of the season for in-person viewing of NCAA tournament-bound teams. Unfortunately, junkies can’t catch ’em both.

Gonzaga, a potential No. 1 seed, makes its annual visit to Saint Mary’s while San Diego State, the best team in the Mountain West and a possible No. 7-8 seed, plays San Jose State. Both games are at 7 p.m., unfortunately.

But if you’re so inclined, it’s possible to see Cal-Stanford at 3:30 and then catch either the Zags or the Aztecs.

I expect the Cal-Stanford and Gonzaga-SMC rematches to be closer than the first meetings, but with the same end result:

* The Gaels will hold up for 37-38 minutes before Gonzaga’s frontline takes control in the final possessions. (Wiltjer, Karnowski and Sabonis were 13 of 19 from the field in the first game.)

* Cal will show better than it did against Stanford in Haas (10-point loss), but the reeling Cardinal has too much at stake to lose at home … or so you’d think.

* Oh, and San Jose State and SDSU won’t be close, just in case you were wondering.

Now that football is over (mostly) and conference play has kicked in, here’s the first installment of the local rankings.

The exercise is intended to be more than a ranking of six teams — that’s just the vehicle.

At heart, it’s a forum for assessment and comment on the Bay Area men’s teams that will appear weekly on the Hotline through the league tourneys. (I’m aiming for Wednesday publication, but don’t hold me to that.)

Thus far, it has been a largely uninspiring season on the hoops front: A handful of horrific losses and only one team in serious at-large contention (Stanford), with two currently off the bubble but hoping to scramble back on (Saint Mary’s and Cal).

In my view, it’s futile for both the Bears and the Gaels — they have too far to climb and too little margin for error. But hey, maybe that’s just me being cynical.

If you’re unfamiliar, the APR measures retention and eligibility, with each player receiving a max of two points (one for retention, one for eligibility) for each semester.

Schools get rewarded for keeping players in school and on track to graduate. Penalties (scholarship reductions, postseason bans) are assessed for poor multi-year scores.

The multi-year scores noted below cover 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years.

*** Cal football, as was reported last week, is recovering from three years of embarrassing results. The Bears have a single-year total of 969 and a multi-year of 938, which keeps them out of the penalty box.

It’s only three points higher than the multi-year posted last spring because the score that dropped out of the calculation was a 959.

Cal’s issue remain the 934-926-923 scores, which will begin to drop out next year.

The NCAA just released the 2013 Academic Progress Rate scores. The news was (predictably) bad from Cal football, what you’d expect from Stanford and absolutely first-rate from San Jose State.

If you’re unfamiliar, the APR measures retention and eligibility. Schools get rewarded for keeping players in school and on track to graduate. Penalties (scholarship reductions, postseason bans) are assessed for poor performance.

To compete in 2013-14 postseason events, teams must have a 900 (or better) multi-year APR or a 930 (or better) average for the past two years.

A perfect score is 1,000.

(The multi-year score referenced below covers the 2008-09 to 2011-12 academic years. The single-year numbers are from 2011-12.

I’m not going to cover the scores for every team in the Bay Area. (You can access the APR database here.) But let’s highlight a few of the results:

*** Cal football posted a 923 single-year score and a 935 multi-year figure — the lowest multi-year in the Pac-12 … one of the 10 lowest in major college football (BCS level) … and an embarrassment to one of the finest academic institutions in the world.

The center of the college basketball world in 2013-14, as it stands now, will be Frankfort, KY, a small town approximately halfway between Louisville and Lexington.

Now that NBA Draft decisions are set and spring recruiting is coming to a close, the arch-, arch-, arch-rivals from the Commonwealth stack up as the best teams in the land as we look ahead to next season.

Louisville has a very real chance to become the third repeat champion since the end of the UCLA dynasty (Duke and Florida are the others).

Kentucky has an equally strong chance to win its second title in three years.

One other note on the rankings below:

You’ll notice that I have one western team, Arizona, in the top 15 and a handful in the final 10 spots.